


Deep Cuts

by mjartrod



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Belldom - Freeform, Drama, Drones Era, Gen, M/M, Male Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:31:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjartrod/pseuds/mjartrod
Summary: A late night (or early morning) discussion based on Matt's Instagram post about the Shepherd’s Bush Empire gig.





	Deep Cuts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tea Party Challenge at Museslash.  
> Flavour: Milk (drama)  
> Munchies: Clotted Cream (perfume), Cupcakes (cigarettes), Flapjack (future)
> 
> Matt's IG post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BWdTaVbDvo8/

 

 

 

 

_Ottawa, Canada_  
_July 2017_

 

  
There was a dull sound of something plunging to the floor and a hiss of pain ensued. The lights above switched on. Hot water gurgling in the kettle was followed by the appliance shutting off with a pop. Dom inhaled deeply and exhaled drowsily into the pillow, the vague smell of a tea infusion reaching his nostrils. Or maybe it was just his sleep addled brain imagining it.

“Turn ‘em off...”

The only reply to his mumble came in the form of stirring. Metallic spoon clattering against ceramics and ringing like a bell inside his head.

“Turn it off.” Dom said a little louder.

“Can’t. Stubbed my toe in the suitcase because it was too dark.”

The stirring continued.

Dom’s arm stretched to the side, patting the nightstand to reach his phone. Blinking at the screen, he tried to focus vision and briefly wondered whether it wasn’t just Chris who needed glasses. 

“D’you know what time it is?” His voice was thick with sleep, the words tangling in his tongue. 

“Yeah.”

It was 4am. They had gone to bed in little over an hour. Dropping the device back on the nightstand and rolling over to land face down, Dom replied into the pillow, more to himself than anything else. “Too late t’ kick me out of your room… if that’s what you’re tryin’ to do.”

“Couldn’t hear you, Dom. What’s that?”

“I said, why the fuck are you awake at 4am drinking tea?”

“Jetlag.”

Again Dom turned, onto his back, the sheet catching around his waist. He rubbed his face wearily with both hands. Drifting off painlessly was starting to look like a distant possibility now. Yes, they were back on the road, but for a few scattered dates on the East Coast though, so he saw through Matt’s bullshit straight away.

It felt like forever since he and Matt last had a chance to sneak out. It had been good. No, not just good, it had been much better than that. They had always been good at it together. In the end, he was worn out, muscles he no longer remembered he possessed sore. Sore of the good kind. 

Getting awoken now for a reason that didn’t involve more amazing sex should not be worth his attention. He’d mastered avoiding drama after casual rendez-vous, he wasn’t keen on having to deal with it now, and especially not with Matt. 

“You just don’t give a fuck, do you?”

Dom opened his eyes again, one step closer to exasperation. “What’re you talking about? Christ, Matt.”

“I’m talking about the “by request” results. Not that you care about it.”

It took Dom a moment until it clicked what this was about: the setlist voting from the fans for the Shepherd’s Bush Empire gig on the 19th August, in about a month’s time. 

Yes, they had expected rarities but the initial results were met with mild shock from almost everyone. There were bets running. At one end, there was Matt, claiming the ten slots would be filled with “deep cuts”; opposite him, Peter Mensch and everyone else at  _Q Prime_ , confident that the usual hits would come out on top, the logic being that those would be the only songs gathering consensus in the wide pool of options, as it had been the case with other artists who’d done similar types of shows in the past.

The polls had been open for less than a week and, so far, Matt was the clear front-runner.

Not only had the frontman’s prediction been spot on, but some of the popular choices, if not necessarily in the current top ten, were right down obscure. On Tuesday, when they first checked the results, he remembered seeing Matt muttering “eternally missed” under his breath, creases in his forehead and Dom didn’t have to ask to know that his bandmate had no recollection whatsoever of how the track went.

Dom didn’t think he’d ever understand the fervour for some (pretty generic) songs but then again, he’d never been one to question everything fans did, he was happy to stay clear of the weirdness. Setlists were Matt’s division anyway. 

He was suddenly filled with amusement at the whole thing, at the invitation for the fans to help collating the set - where no detail was decided without Matt’s clearance - suddenly, albeit very predictably, becoming an issue. He chuckled low at first. And then louder.

“You think it’s funny, do you. Hanging out so much with 20-year-old models does that to you.”

Dom’s laughter faded to a tight smile on his lips.

“Kindly take that back. Now.”

A number of scathing replies had instantly come to Dom’s mind at the jab - and any other man would wield them - but the dry request had been enough to send Matt into a compromising silence. Bristling with anger and prompted by a sudden bout of energy, Dom disentangled the sheets from himself and slid out of the bed. He looked around for his clothes, snatching his underwear from the floor near the bed first.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” He pulled his boxers up, ignoring Matt who he could now see was sprawled on a large designer armchair in the corner of the large suite, in boxers and a crumpled white t-shirt. He looked a little stunned, holding the cup of tea mid-air, the yellow Earl Grey label from Twinings hanging from one side.

“It was a joke, don’t get your knickers in a twist. She’s cool.” Matt said. “Cooler than you.” He added sheepishly.

She was a lot more than that, Dom thought as he half-heartedly pulled his skinnies up, his determination to leave gone just as fast as it had arrived. In spite of being annoyed, the last thing he was looking forward to at the moment was to head outside and search for his own room. He rested his hands on his hips and let his head drop back, incapable of being bothered to zip himself or undress again.

“It was your idea to do a by request show, Matt, and you said you were game with whatever the choices would be.”

“I was off my face and you didn’t stop me from doing shit.”

Dom was struck with the urge to laugh again but this time he contained himself. He padded over towards the other man and leaned against the wall, arms folded in front of his chest. “It’s gonna be cool. You were really excited about this, why are you getting cold feet now?”

Matt sipped his tea calmly. “It’s gonna be the  _worst_  gig ever.”

Dom rolled his eyes.

“You realise those people who got tickets are our harshest critics.” The singer continued with a scowl, gazing at some invisible point ahead as though he was facing one of the ticket buyers. “If we fuck this up they’re gonna fucking bottle us.”

“Most fans attending this are hardcore and they’re the ones choosing what we’re gonna play. They’ll go bananas over every song and sing every word with you from start to end. This can’t possibly go wrong.”

“You’re just like them. Did you get a ticket too so you could sneak in a vote for Glorious? You’d be first in the queue if you weren’t in the bloody band. Get that barrier spot in front of me to watch me sweat over this. That’s what it’s all about.”

This time Dom did giggle. “The world versus Matthew Bellamy. Sounds like a good name for a band.”

“It’s a terrible name for a band.” He was glowering at Dom now. “I have no idea what the lyrics are to more than half of the songs in that list, I don’t remember how to play the other half and I’m warning you now, The Small Print is not going to be in the setlist no matter what.”

“It’s not even in the top twenty, you paranoid wanker. And I’m gonna have to ask Tom or Glen for a couple of old recordings too, or you think I remember everything?”

“You remember everything.” Matt deadpanned.

“You just don’t want to rehearse the songs.”

“They’re gonna sound like shit!”

“They won’t because we’ll do our job and make sure they sound organic and fresh. Do you even know your fans at all? They just wanna start a good old moshpit to the bloody songs.”

“Why are we going over this again? I know what they want, I’m the one who doesn’t wanna go on stage to present utter rubbish.”

Dom let out a fortifying breath. “We’ve played most of those songs not so long ago and they sounded good enough for you until the novelty wore off. It’s only a few we’ll have to rehearse from scratch and we’ll find a way to make them work.”

“Bollocks. You can’t make shit sound like gold.”

“Fuck off Matt, we play shit songs every night and you don’t even blink- don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true- what’s the difference this time, except that none of those songs is shit? They’re even voting for Easily and you know it’s because you suggested it yourself.” He went over to Matt and sat down on his knees, face to face, straddling him as if he were a stool. “What is your problem?”

“My problem?” Matt scoffed but looked downwards, away from Dom’s scrutiny and busying himself with another sip of tea. Dom then removed the hot cup carefully from his hold and put it down on the coffee table on the side. Matt didn’t struggle.

“So?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He laid a hand on Dom’s leg, fidgeting with a little rip on the black denim. He sighed after a moment. “We’re gonna go through all the effort to make this work and it’s still not going to be enough.”

“Morgan says we could play Citizen ten times and everyone would love it.” He recalled, to Matt’s shrug of shoulders. “We’ve had to deal with the pressure of larger gigs and tours, why is this bothering you? When did you forget that you can’t please everyone?”

“It’s not that. I don’t wanna fuck it up.”

“You said you wanted to do something different for the fans, that it was going to be fun. That’s the spirit, why are you going back now?”

“What’s with all the fucking questions, you’re not usually this tenacious so late.”

Dom put a hand on his shoulder and locked eyes with him. “Stop looking for excuses. Let’s just fucking do this, Matt.”

Matt returned the gaze quietly, then pushed his hand away. “Yeah, yeah. Alright.” He mumbled. “Never mind. Couldn’t sleep, started getting anxious and thinking. Overthinking.” He rubbed an eye with the heel of his hand. “You’re gonna get Glorious, hope you’re happy about that.”

“If it’s still top ten in the end...” Dom smiled.

“Yeah well… I looked up a couple of covers on You Tube today…” Matt admitted, Dom trying very hard not to make his astonishment apparent. “Could get some nice GTR delay in, I reckon… May as well play it anyway. We could pick the whole setlist out of the most popular, I mean, all the other ones apart from the top ten. Songs like Butterflies and New Born.”

Dom nodded slowly. “Get in the more unusual rotation options?”

“Pretty much, yeah. If we’re gonna do this, then we should go all out and fucking do it proper.” Matt nodded. “My voice’s going to be shattered after this, don’t wanna do too many breaks apart from the encores.”

“It’s a one-off and you have time to recover until Belfast. But yeah we could go for that, I’m in. Chris is too, you know he’ll be. We’ll get those old school riffs in and we can keep the drum n’ bass…”

“… start the encore with one of the tricky numbers. And fucking Showbiz half a step down, no chance.”

“Sure.”

“Yeah. Let’s go with it.”

They grinned at each other.

“Now don’t come whining to me about this in a couple of days.” Dom poked him in the chest with a finger. “You can’t claim you were drunk.”

“But I’m in a very… vulnerable position at the moment.” He slipped a little forward in the armchair, to the edge of the seat, while Dom inched further towards his lap, his knees bumping against the upholstery. Matt’s hands spread on top of Dom’s thighs and he stroked up, slowly. Dom could feel the heat pooling very quickly. “Still falls under significant impaired decision-making ability, doesn’t it?”

Leaning forward, Dom lowered on top of him, hands on the cushioned armrests on each side of Matt. “Does that mean I can persuade you to do things?”

The words brushed against Dom’s lips. “More than what you’ve persuaded me to do tonight?”

Matt’s lips were warm and inviting and there was a faint scent of lemon and honey in his breath. Dom could also feel a trace of his own Tom Ford fragrance and cigarettes which had clung to Matt’s sweaty skin in the past couple of hours. The whole combination was enough to make him slightly heady with arousal.

He pressed his mouth forward against Matt’s, kissing him once, parting his lips with his tongue and claiming his upper lip with a small suck. Matt’s mouth seemed to follow instinctively. “We don’t do this enough.”

“Your fault. Just come over, you know I’m easily swayed.”

“It’s my fault, my arse.” He spoke in his ear before taking his earlobe between his teeth gently. They shifted to adjust their positions so he could sit properly on Matt’s lap, knees on the armchair now and digging against the back cushions on each side of the singer’s body. “You’re always busy.”

His hands snaked around Dom’s waist inside the open jeans as they kissed, and he hooked his thumbs on the band of Dom’s boxers above his backside. “I always make room for you… more so when you come to me like this.” 

A thorough kiss broke into several small ones, slowed down until they stood with their foreheads together, noses touching. Dom wrapped a hand around the back of Matt’s neck and sighed. 

“I think-” He paused with a little grimace. 

“Are you about to say you’re too tired to do anything other than sleep? Some fucking stallion you turned out to be, Dominic  _HowHard_.”

“Are you seriously in for another round?”

Matt didn’t bat an eyelid. “No.” 

There was a beat before they erupted in giggles at the same time. 

Eventually Dom dragged himself back so he could get up and adjusted himself in his skinnies. He had to admit the prospect of finally returning to bed was awfully appealing. 

“Sorry for waking you up.” Matt let his voice drop to a whisper, as he took the hand that Dom offered him. “I did it on purpose.”

Dom held strong as Matt used the leverage to lift himself off the armchair, trying to comprehend the meaning of what he just heard. “Unbelievable. Just when I think you’re never growing up.”

Matt raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

“Ten years ago you wouldn’t have admitted it, much less apologised. What a journey it’s been.” He teased.

“Don’t stretch your luck.” Matt slipped an arm around Dom’s waist, the drummer returning the favour. The two walked side by side to the bed. “You know, I had this idea for Shepherd’s Bush, about what to wear on stage… this would be the _perfect_ gig for you to drum shirtless.”

Dom nodded absentmindedly, tuning out his voice as he dropped on the bed.

There were things in life no one would ever convince him to do. Not even Matt.

 

 

_The End_

 

**Author's Note:**

> You probably miss the munchies if you blink, but as the story went from idea to paper things changed a little. Unfortunately, I also realised very late in the game that I completely missed that there was supposed to be an underlying theme to the story too, based on Earl Grey/Journey… Apologies for being an idiot! Despite all my mishandling of the rules, I hope it was still enjoyable to read somehow! *sips tea*


End file.
